The Right to Hate?

A white supremacist wants to advocate his political views on a billboard in a majority African-American neighborhood.   A neo-Nazi group wants to march in a city with a large number of Holocaust survivors.  A conservative Christian passes out literature denouncing the legitimacy of gay marriage outside of a wedding chapel.  Are these actions examples of hate speech?  If so, should they be legally permitted according to Mill?  Is he correct?  What should the state do about speech that discriminates or preaches intolerance?

Highways and Protests

In On Liberty, Mill vigorously defends the right of citizens to assemble and express their views.  Yet how far does that right extend?   A bill in Iowa proposes making protesting on a highway a felony subject to as much as five years in prison.   Its proponent cites safety concerns around the obstruction of police and fire vehicles.   However, civil liberties claim it and similar laws have a chilling affect of free speech and the right to protest.  What would Mill say about all this?  Which side of the debate is correct (or is there some third or middle position that is correct)?  Is there a right to protest even if it prevents me from getting work on time?

"Guiltier Than Him They Try": Hypocrisy and Consistency

Angelo defends his conviction and execution of Claudio in Act 2 in the face of Escalus' protests that he himself might one day find himself in the same situation.  He argues that

I do not deny
The jury passing on the prisoner's life
May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try. . . . [But]
You may not so extenuate his offense
For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,
When I that censure him do so offend,
Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,
And nothing come in partial  (2.1.19-21;29-33).

In this speech he argues that empathy has no place in jurisprudence and that a judge's own vice and guilt should play no role in her rulings.  Yet, is this ideal of consistency too difficult to achieve?  Isn't this a recipe for hypocrisy?  After all, even the virtuous Angelo (his name suggests virtuous perfection) fails to live up to his own strict standards.  Yet, on the other hand, when his crime (the very same act of fornication he convicts Claudio of committing) he clings to his ideal of consistency and retribution: "But let my trial be mine own confession./ Immediate sentence then and sequent death / Is all the grace I beg." (5.1.418-20). 

What is this play telling us about such things as hypocrisy, consistency and empathy? 

Here Comes the Judge

Measure for Measure features three judges with dramatically different styles and philosophies of jurisprudence.  The Duke has failed to enforce the "strict statutes and most biting laws" and as a result "our decrees / dead to infliction, to themselves are dead"(1.3.20;28-9).  Angelo, who has been chosen by the Duke to fix his mess, advocates that all the laws, however harsh, be enforced.   He argues to Isabella that the law

Now 'tis wake,
Takes note of what is done, and like a prophet,
Looks in a glass that shows what future evils--
Either now , or by remissness new-conceived,
And so in progress to be hatched and born --
Are now to have no successive degrees
But, ere they live, to end.  (2.2.120-26)

Escalus finds himself disagreeing with both.  He questions Angelo's harsh sentence of Claudio but nonetheless does not excuse or pardon the offenses that the Duke ignored. 

What is this play telling us about enforcing the law and imposing punishments?  Should a judge be strict or lenient?  Is there a judicial philosophy judges should embrace -- or is following a rule itself problematic? What effects do these decisions have on the society at large?  How does a judge defend justice?